Machine operator Edmund Long loaded labeled water bottles at Virginia Artesian in Hanover County last month. The company, which was started in 2003, has nine employees.
Edmund Long, a machine operator, works on loading labeled water bottles at at Virginia Artesian bottling company in Mechanicsville, Va., on Monday, March 28, 2022.
Aluminum water bottles are stocked at Virginia Artesian bottling company in Mechanicsville, Va., on Monday, March 28, 2022.
An automated machine made aluminum water bottles at Virginia Artesian in Hanover County last month.
Nick Brown, president and co-owner of Virginia Artesian, works on an automated packaging machine at the Hanover County company.
Virginia Artesian is invested in aluminum bottles, which cost 50% more than glass bottles.
Steve Brown is co-owner of Virginia Artesian.
Steve Brown (top) is co-owner and Nick Brown is president and co-owner of Virginia Artesian.
Steve Brown and his son, Nick, owners of Virginia Artesian, are shown at their bottling company in Mechanicsville, Va., on Monday, March 28, 2022.
Hundreds of feet below Steve Brown’s eastern Hanover County property, pristine water rests in an ancient aquifer made of solid rock. Topped with layer upon layer of impermeable organic materials, the water is clean, untouched by pollutants, a natural resource waiting to be tapped.
It’s a difference one can taste.
Steve Brown and his son, Nick Brown, operate Virginia Artesian, a Hanover-based artesian water and custom label bottling company that — pun intended — bubbled from the ground up. Steve Brown is co-owner, while Nick Brown, 31, is president and co-owner.
Unlike spring water, which Steve Brown described as surface water, artesian water is that which arrives at ground level from intense internal — or hydrostatic — pressure, often without the use of pumps. When drilled, the pressure of the trapped water naturally forces it to the surface.
Artesian wells, which can be found throughout the world, are sourced from underneath layers of clay, rock and other materials and it’s those layers — not the depth of the well — that define artesian wells from other wells.
It’s not quite the fountain of youth, though seeing Steve Brown beam with pride when he describes how an idea nearly 20 years ago has evolved into a successful father-son venture surely has its cathartic effects.
Virginia Artesian was started in 2003 and today with nine employees, the company bottles its own water from two artesian wells more than 300 feet deep. They fill plastic, aluminum and glass bottles that range in size from 8 ounces to 20 ounces. The majority of the business, however, comes from something that Steve Brown said he never saw coming — custom labels for water bottles.
Roughly 80% of the business comes from customers across the Mid-Atlantic region who want water bottles with their own custom labels on them. Clients range from luxury hotels and colleges and universities to small doctors’ offices and other businesses.
The smaller share of the business comes from selling retail water bottles. Virginia Artesian sells its water at Publix grocery stores around the metro Richmond area, but also at local independent retailers like Libbie Market and Ellwood Thompson’s, Mechanicsville Drug Store, Red Rooster Country Store and more. Virginia Artesian has also been the water source for state agencies during hurricanes and other natural disasters.
As he walked along the production line inside the facility last month, Steve Brown, 70, recalled that at 50 years old, he was looking for something else to do. For decades, he’d worked in a number of fields, from accounting to construction, including a 17-year stint at Philip Morris. Lying on a beach somewhere didn’t appeal to him as a retirement option. He’d always loved manufacturing and engineering, he said.
Meanwhile, he was sitting on 74 acres in Hanover that — unbeknownst to him when he bought the property in the early 1980s — had artesian water underneath. He had a domestic well — his home is adjacent to the water facility — but he had to do geologic surveys to find that he had artesian water and could have artesian wells.
He started researching artesian water companies. He went to trade shows and spent time in the western part of the country, talking and learning from existing water and bottling companies.
Steve Brown joked that his wife didn’t say no to his water company idea back then, though she didn’t say yes, either. His son — the youngest of his two children — was a kid at the time. Like many children who grow up in family businesses, Nick Brown recalled working through his youth and teen years inside the facility, moving pallets around and doing anything his father needed. After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University, he officially joined his father.
“The opportunity to work with family, to work with who was my best friend growing up,” said Nick Brown, referring to his father, “it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Steve Brown joked that he’d be out of business if his son hadn’t stayed on with the family business.
“I’m so lucky — to come in every day and be able to see what he does,” said Steve Brown, explaining that he’s watched his son grow and mature into a man who today confidently closes national deals with customers. “The thrill runs down my spine when I see him. ... It’s really rewarding.”
It’s Nick Brown’s eye toward the future that has propelled Virginia Artesian in new directions, namely toward eco-friendly options of aluminum and glass bottles. Plastic, the cheapest of the three materials, used to be the norm, Nick Brown said. Market shifts in public opinion about plastics’ hazardous environmental impact, however, meant the company had to adapt.
It moved to provide more aluminum and glass bottles to customers, despite the added cost. Glass bottles are about twice as expensive as plastic, Steve Brown said, while aluminum bottles are 50% higher than glass bottles.
“I’ve been fully invested in that,” said Nick Brown, referring to the push for aluminum bottles. “It’s been really neat to see the market progress in that area.”
Virginia Artesian buys its bottles from bottle manufacturers around the country. All the bottles, however, are available for custom labels and that makes Virginia Artesian unique, Nick Brown said. Few bottling companies have the ability to label all three types of bottles under one roof. They can do that thanks to the equipment built for them to be able to handle each type of bottle. Custom bottles get their own labels and even different cap colors.
Steve Brown said their facility has upward of 6 million labels available for their customers. They don’t create the label designs in house, but rather partner with a design agency.
Nicolas Dubort, general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C., recalled that when he joined the hotel in early 2020, he was “horrified” to learn that it served plastic water bottles to guests.
“I wanted to address that immediately,” he said. As part of the hotel’s commitment to environmental sustainability, he wanted to find glass water bottles without relying solely on national brands like Evian or S.Pellegrino. In thinking about environmental quality, it didn’t make sense, he said, to be shipping glass bottles from France.
He said he encouraged his staff to find high-quality — but local — water. A quick internet search led them to Virginia Artesian.
“I was hooked immediately,” Dubort said, and not just because the water source was less than two hours from the hotel and therefore the process created a much smaller carbon footprint. Being from France, where he’s used to drinking high-quality mineral waters, Dubort said Virginia Artesian’s water tasted “just perfect.”
He happened to like Virginia Artesian’s label and decided to keep it rather than create a custom one for the hotel. He started out buying glass bottles, though quickly found them to be tricky. They’re heavy and can break. He also found out that the nation’s capital didn’t have a glass recycling program. Again, he reached out to Virginia Artesian, this time for aluminum bottles.
“The cost is much higher,” he said, but the sustainability element better aligns with the hotel’s values. That, and aluminum bottles are lighter than glass and easier for guests to manage.
“Paying a little bit more to do the right thing is something we have no problem with,” Dubort said. “We need to do the right things for the planet.”
Stephen Ninneman, manager of museum shops at Monticello near Charlottesville, said the historic site did away with plastics in 2019 at both retail shops on-site and in its cafe as part of a recycling initiative. He said it reached out to Virginia Artesian for aluminum water bottles.
“We want to stick to local as much as we can,” he said, but “what I appreciate most — it’s a great-tasting water. It’s pure, it’s clean — you don’t have any additives.”
Best of all, “we knew exactly where it was coming from.”
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Machine operator Edmund Long loaded labeled water bottles at Virginia Artesian in Hanover County last month. The company, which was started in 2003, has nine employees.
Edmund Long, a machine operator, works on loading labeled water bottles at at Virginia Artesian bottling company in Mechanicsville, Va., on Monday, March 28, 2022.
Aluminum water bottles are stocked at Virginia Artesian bottling company in Mechanicsville, Va., on Monday, March 28, 2022.
An automated machine made aluminum water bottles at Virginia Artesian in Hanover County last month.
Nick Brown, president and co-owner of Virginia Artesian, works on an automated packaging machine at the Hanover County company.
Virginia Artesian is invested in aluminum bottles, which cost 50% more than glass bottles.
Steve Brown is co-owner of Virginia Artesian.
Steve Brown (top) is co-owner and Nick Brown is president and co-owner of Virginia Artesian.
Steve Brown and his son, Nick, owners of Virginia Artesian, are shown at their bottling company in Mechanicsville, Va., on Monday, March 28, 2022.
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